Centrifugal fans are commonly used in computer systems and other electronic devices to provide cooling of the CPU (central processing unit), GPU (graphics processing unit) and other modules. Newer product generations typically introduce new features and/or faster processors that offer improved computing performance. These upgrades typically come with a cost of higher thermal loading on the system, which consequently requires increased air flow from the cooling fan to avoid overheating or throttling of processor performance to stay within sustainable temperature ranges. One way to increase the air flow and achieve the additional cooling required is to increase the maximum speed at which the fan is allowed to run in the system. Unfortunately, with higher speed comes higher air flow noise, which can have an undesirable impact on the user experience.
Therefore, it is desirable to optimize the fan air flow performance without acoustic performance.